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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Cherry Almond Loaf Cake

My cookbooks adorn a prime space on our bedside table.Hubby sometimes finds it funny that I read cookbooks and that too so enthusiastically.Since I never stop buying cookbooks and never intend to do so,I have truckloads of new recipes to read always.I glance through each of them and keep ticking away those which I want to try ASAP.Bookmarking so many recipes from blogs too,I am confused as to where to start.

Nita Mehta’s Cakes and Cookies was one of my first Baking cookbooks.I took baby steps in baking following her recipes.Simple beginner recipes which yields perfect results.Some of the recipes I tried are here,here and here.

While clearing my fridge to search for something,I came across this small unopened bottle of Almond essence.I tried hard to remember why I bought that one.There are a few recipes which require almond essence but I had bought it long back specifically to make this tea-cake.Put my act through fast and made this yummy tea cake.Moist,with just the right sweetness,crunchy nuts and sweet cherries to bite this one’s won our hearts.:)

Cherry Almond Loaf Cake

Ingredients

Flour/Maida – 1 cup

Baking powder – 1 tsp

Glace cherries – ½ cup(50 grams)-cut into round slices

Almond – ½ cup(40 grams)-chopped roughly

Powdered Sugar – ¾ cup

Eggs – 2

Oil – ½ cup

Almond essence – 2-3 drops

Method

Grease and line a 8’- 4’ loaf tin.

Preheat oven to 150 C/300 F.

Sift together flour and baking powder and keep aside.

Keep aside a few cherries and almonds for the topping and mix the rest with the sifted flour.

Beat together powdered sugar and eggs till frothy.

Add oil gradually and keep beating.

Add the flour-mix to the egg batter,beat well.

Then add the essence-scrape the bowl and mix well again.[the batter is quite thick].

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for an hour[or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean].

If the top is browning too quickly,loosely cover the top with a foil.

Remove from oven,let it cool for 10 minutes and then remove to a wire rack.

Hey... I have these dried cherries which are perfect for this cake. Am bookmarking to try! They're not the wet glace cherries... I used them here: http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/12/cherry-pancakes.html

Divu, this one looks super moist n special especially being butterless! :D And co-incidently me too has a bottle of one-time used almond essence n didn't think it did any value addition to the end product! :D LOL on bedside table stacked wt cookery books..does it also mean addition in purchase of new cutlery? :D ;) just kidding! (wd get a new oven by tom. here.wd bake this too!)TC! Tks for sharing.

I too do the same thing, stacking up cooking books (mostly baking) in my bedside table and ticking the ones which I want to try :)and as u've written the number of books are increasing... but no complaints ;)

Relatively new to ur bog but loved the extensive collection of recipies, especially baked treats. Would like to know if the oil can be substituted with butter and how much. Also could you give me a fool proof recipe for a simple cake with no frosting for my son's birthday. Looking foward to your reply. Love Vinitha